It took a grand total of one month for the company of horse archers to be fully trained. All too soon, it came time for them to undertake their first mission. Ganon had not brought his legions to bear since the ill-advised and ill-fated assault on Hyrule Castle, and some members of our high command (Impa and Link in particular) were beginning to worry that he was withholding them to lure us into a false sense of security. Nabooru also insisted that we needed to get a sense of how many troops Ganon had at his disposal.

I couldn't have agreed more with all of them. I also wanted to know how many enemies we were dealing with. As well, I wanted to bring our new horse archers to bear in some skirmishes, as practice for them and to keep Ganon on his toes. Though, when I told the rest of our high command this point, Impa immediately countered that we didn't want to reveal our new secret weapon too soon.

Interestingly, it was Darunia who supported me by responding in turn to Impa. "Ganon will already suspect that the Gerudo have joined us," he stated. "He surely knows that we'll field some horse archers. But those need not be our only secret weapon. My people, the Gorons, are loyal beyond measure to me, and are great warriors. There is no doubt that they will ally themselves to our army if I ask them to."

His suggestion was, of course, approved unanimously. And it was this that rescued my idea of leading the horse archers in a raid on Ganon's forces.

So it was that I found myself riding at the head of about 120 horse archers into the western valley. The company of a hundred was supported by a small Gerudo party, who were there mainly to boost the confidence of the fresh Hylian troops. Among these was, predictably, the young Gerudo who I'd noticed the day after my fateful conversation with Zelda. As I predicted, she rode next to her young Hylian admirer.

Link was with us as well, garbed in the green tunic and hood-cap that I'd become accustomed to seeing him wearing. The Master Sword hung at his side, though he carried his bow during the ride, as that was what he would be mainly using.

The mood of that march was one of great anticipation. The freshly-trained horse archers were about to enter into their first combat. I knew Ganon would throw several times our number of soldiers at us, so we could count on being quite heavily outnumbered. We therefore couldn't afford to engage the enemy in close combat.

We soon came upon a small enemy patrol. There were ten creatures, humanoid in form, but with deep purple skin and hideous faces. They carried short swords that resembled meat cleavers. These charged headlong at us, but were summarily dealt with by a veritable storm of arrows from at least forty of our number, including Link.

With this small number dropped, we continued through the valley, until we approached the late Gerudo stronghold. As we drew ever nearer to it, I wondered what Kaylee would think of all that I'd done so far. I just hoped I would survive this war so I could tell her about it.

I almost didn't notice when we actually rode before the impressive fortress. Inside the main gate were dozens, no, hundreds of terrifying humanoid creatures of varying sizes. There were more Bulblins, but also legions of other, similarly repugnant beings. I gave the signal to halt the company, almost too close to them for comfort.

These insidious monsters quickly noticed us and began to advance. "Fire at will!" I shouted to the troops. With that, each man and woman nocked and drew their bows, marked their targets, and released their arrows, not as one, but in a constant stream of fire. The well-aimed shots didn't take much effort to find their marks, and very quickly there was a layer of fallen bodies forming on the rocky ground. I pulled my own bow out and joined in the firing.

It took some time for any meaningful resistance to be put up, in the form of a squad of Bulblin archers. Even so, their low-powered bows did little damage to us. One Gerudo had her hand transfixed by a stone-tipped arrow, but that was the extent of the injuries. The fire from the Bulblins ceased quickly as we targeted them.

But then a new menace approached. Coming from within the passages of the fortress were a small team of what appeared to be giants, encased in thick plate armor from top to toe, and brandishing war swords and maces of considerable size. These newcomers charged headlong at us. I, along with several others, fired shots at them, only to have our arrows bounce pathetically off their armor. Link was only a horse's width from me, and I yelled to him, "What are those things?"

Over the clank of the approaching bruisers, Link hollered back, "Darknuts! We have to pull back!"

Seeing the nonexistent effect of our arrows on the Darknuts, I readily agreed with him. "Pull back!" I shouted. The men and women near me heard and carried out the order with astonishing enthusiasm, to be joined in a wave by the rest of the company. Link and I brought up the rear, with those metal beasts closing in on us.

As we retreated, we were followed not only by the massive Darknuts, but also by a host of smaller creatures unwise enough to see us off. Parthian shots from the Gerudo and from Link whittled their numbers down quickly. A few of our Hylian recruits also attempted to fire backwards, with varying degrees of success (one arrow very nearly took my right ear off before landing harmlessly in front of one of the pursuing creatures).

Ahead of me, I saw a horse stumble and go down, bringing its rider, the young Hylian recruit with the crush on his Gerudo trainer, down with it. As I stopped and stared, the young lad tried desperately to get his horse back on its feet. But the mount clearly had been made lame in one leg, and the enemy were still hot on our tail, closing in on him.

I was very close to dismounting and charging in to keep the approaching hordes from him. But I was forestalled by the young Gerudo trainer who the boy admired so much, who, predictably, turned her own mount around and charged back, her bow spitting out a rapid barrage of arrows at the smaller, more vulnerable enemies. She stopped next to her charge and hauled him onto her horse. She then brought her steed back around and set it to a full gallop, with her companion wrapping his arms around her waist and holding on for dear life.

Seeing no further need to stand there, I did the same as her, wheeling Dagda back around to follow the rest of the troop, occasionally firing backwards into the still-pursuing legions. We set a cracking pace and made it out of the valley and back onto the plain in record time. Once there, our foe abruptly gave up the chase and turned back towards Ganon's fortress, as if on some telepathic command.

So our first action ended – quite predictably, it must be admitted – in a rout by our forces, but, thankfully, we suffered no fatalities, and our only casualties consisted of a few scratches and minor flesh wounds from the pitiful arrow fire of the Bulblins. Moreover, we took down a significant number of enemies (I wasn't paying attention to how many).

As we returned to Lon Lon Ranch, I knew we hadn't made much of a dent in the forces of darkness. But what was significant was the fact that our large, fresh batch of horse archers were lethally effective. It almost hadn't been a fair fight, and, in hindsight, I realized that, had the Darknuts not showed themselves, we would likely have kept scything through Ganon's forces until we ran out of arrows.

Meeting Link and I at the horse ring were Zelda, Impa, Nabooru, and the other Sages. As I dismounted from Dagda, and Link from Epona, Zelda asked, "Shall I assume the horse archers did well?"

I grinned widely. "Better than I could've ever hoped," was my answer. And I meant it.

Zelda smiled brightly, clapping me on the shoulder in an unmistakable gesture of congratulations, one that I graciously returned.

And, for a brief moment, I forgot all about our conversation from all those days before.